Church vs. President on Health-Care Plans

Obama Would Force Abortion on Doctors and Taxpayers

WASHINGTON — No one is saying what
President Obama and Cardinal Francis George talked about in their unannounced
St. Patrick’s Day meeting.

But surely, health care must have
been a topic of discussion.

Cardinal George is the president of
the U.S. bishops’ conference. Both the U.S. bishops and Obama have had a lot to
say about health care recently.

The U.S. bishops and Obama’s approaches
have one key difference: The bishops support the right to life of all. Obama is
pro-abortion.

The Obama administration wants
Congress to sneak the president’s health-care plans through Congress in an
end-run around opposition, The Washington Post
reported March 18.

Obama himself set the priority in
his Feb. 24 address to Congress, emphasizing “the crushing cost of health
care.”

Even in the face of unemployment, failed
businesses and foreclosed homes, he said, “We can no longer afford to put health-care
reform on hold.”

Kathy Saile works for the U.S.
bishops on domestic social issues. “For decades, the bishops have called for
universal access to quality health care,” she said. “It is an essential
protection for human life and dignity.”

But Rev. Jim Wallis, an evangelical
pastor who is a member of Obama’s new Advisory Council on Faith-Based and
Neighborhood Partnerships, told Christian Broadcasting Network that making
abortion provisions part of health-care reform will “kill health-care reform.”

Comments on Conscience

On March 17, Cardinal George issued
a dire warning about the Obama administration’s plans to deny doctors
conscientious objector rights. He said Obama’s plans “could be the first step
in moving our country from democracy to despotism.”

On March 6, Obama moved to rescind
the Bush administration’s protections for health-care centers and providers;
those persons and institutions may have to provide services or refer patients
for services they find objectionable on moral or religious grounds.

“Overturning conscience protection
means ignoring freedom of religion under the law, as guaranteed by the First
Amendment,” said John Brehany, executive director of the Catholic Medical
Association. “This would pressure doctors, nurses and health-care providers
into greater participation in abortion and other things their conscience might
oppose. This is a truly radical proposal, not the action of an administration
seeking ‘common ground’ on abortion.”

The Department of Health and Human
Services, which is implementing the change in conscience protection, is
accepting public comment during a 30-day period before the new rules go into
effect.

Deirdre McQuade, assistant director
for policy and communications at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat
for Pro-Life Activities, said that Catholics should contact the president and
write to the Department of Health and Human Services to voice their support for
conscience protection.

“If the Obama administration truly
wants to reform health care and have Catholics as active partners in that
effort, they need to uphold conscience protection and the rights of Catholic
doctors and health-care providers,” said McQuade. “Coercing doctors to refer
patients for abortion in violation of their religious beliefs is not good
medicine.”

Brehany of the Catholic Medical
Association agreed on the importance of providing health-care services to those
in need. “But we need to ask how the problems within the health-care system are
going to be addressed by this administration,” he said. “Having the federal government in control of
the financing and determining which services are provided is not the answer.”

In “A Catholic Proposal for Health
Care Renewal,” published in November 2008, the Catholic Medical Association advocated
for individual ownership of health insurance, so that people could purchase
“coverage that conforms to the dictates of their conscience.” Brehany said that
the federal government should work with the states and private companies to
provide more health insurance options for individuals and families, allowing
them to choose between competing plans and join groups or associations that
share their values.

Brehany maintained that, just as
Americans should be able to choose medical coverage consistent with their
morals and beliefs, physicians and institutions should also be protected from
efforts to coerce them into referring women for abortions, prescribing
emergency contraception, or providing other services that violate their
religious convictions.

‘Not Vending Machines’

Some Catholics took a more positive
view of Obama’s health-care reform initiatives. “We applaud the president’s
commitment to achieving universal health coverage,” said Jennifer Goff, a
spokeswoman for Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good. “Catholic social
teaching is clear that universal health care is a fundamental human right. As
Catholics, we are called to defend human dignity and care for those who are
sick and vulnerable.”

Goff pointed to the fact that 47
million Americans — many of them children — are without health insurance,
calling this “a moral failure.” Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good
believes that the government should guarantee that health care is universally
available in America. “We want to make sure this is a bipartisan effort for the
common good, a priority for all those in office, not just the president,” said
Goff.

Nonetheless, William Toffler,
professor of family medicine at Oregon Health Sciences University, is concerned
about conscience protection. He said that at his institution even if a doctor
does not perform or participate in abortion or physician-assisted suicide he or
she is still required to refer patients for that service.

Toffler, who refuses to prescribe
contraceptives or refer patients for abortion or assisted suicide, explained,
“When we cooperate with an act that we find unethical or immoral, we have
culpability; we are indirectly supporting and promoting that practice.”

“Doctors are not vending machines,”
he said. “We’re not meant to be robots, simply dispensing whatever people want
whenever they want it. We are informed by our consciences, and we should not be
asked to violate that in order to practice medicine.”

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